The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1887-04-23

A cable letter from London to
the New York Times of the 9th
inst. says:
The detailed provisions OF the Alien Land
act, which were only known here this week,
created the greatest excitement in financial
circles. One great city Spectator tells me
that not less than 400 big American land
schemes are knocked in the head by it, For
years London has been full of American
promoters of all sorts--mines, ranches and
estates, to sell or float in companies-these
ranging all the way from niillionaires to
needy Adventures. These gentry are now
conscious that they have sustained griev-
Gus setback. Dorsey, who recently gave q
great and Ostentatious dinner here, is now
in Holland, where he was negotiating with
an Amsterdam company to buy tract OF
several millions of acres in New Mexico
with a view TO selling il here to London
syndicate II he succeeded. He is now badly
left, since he will be unable to find pur-
chaser either here or in America. Rufus
Hatch Is also here, trying 10 unload a nice
little ranch, and finds himself high and
dry. City investors and agents are in al
most state of panic, since it is uncertain
how deeply the clause forbidding aliens to
have even an indirect interest in land may
shake mortgages and loan companies.
Had the law referred to been
framed in a more explicit manner
it would have proven a very ben
eicia! act and been the means Of
accomplishing great good. But
the sweeping provisions of the bill,
prohibiting as it does the purchase
of all manner of lands in the terri
tories by foreigners, will prove in
imicable to our great mining inter
ests. The object of the bill was to
protect the great agricultural and
grazing lands of the territories, still
unoccupied, but which are being
rapidly filled up by seekers of new
homes. In an eagerness to correct
the evil of allowing English land
spectators to obtain control of
these vast tracts Of land, little if
any attention seems to have been
paid to such portions of the great
public domain, useless in every re-
spect save for mining. 1t has been
an unlocked for and a harsh blow
to a great industry in Idaho Terri
tory, and particularly so to this
immediate vicinity. Negotiations
have been in progress for some
time for the purchase Of several
properties near Ketchum and would
have been consummated this spring
but for this unexpected barrier
raised to prevent it. Fortunately
in one instance the law will not in
terfere, as the sale of property had
so far progressed that the papers
had been signed before the passage
of the measure. In another in
stance, where the sale of a valuable
group of mines to an English syn
dictate is under way, the parties
having the matter in charge write
that should the new law prevent
the sale, other parties in the eastern
states have signified a willingness
to take the property on the terms
proposed to the English capitalists
who contemplated buying it. The
Mines Company of Gresham House,
London, the biggest concern of nego-
tiating agents in Europe, has passed
a resolution that it will refuse to
deal with any and all American
mines, lands and securities in the
territories even if the way is found
to evade the law. English capital
has been instrumental in the devel-
oping of many fine properties in
the western territories; it has been
paid out with lavish hands, very
often when no return for the in
vestment was ever made, and the
profits of the transactions are large
ly on the side of those who sue
ceeded in disposing of their mines
to the foreign buyer. 1t seems
strange that in neither branch of
was a voice raised to pro-
tect the mining industries of the
territories, but possibly those who
could have done so, whose interests
are in Nevada and California, saw
in the passage Of such bill boom
for their individual states and there
fore wagged silent tongue.